The Cyber Crime Cell of Ahmedabad Police has apprehended three individuals for allegedly using customer data to generate fake SIM cards, which were then shipped to Dubai for suspected illegal activities.
The fraud was uncovered on March 27 of this year when a customs officer at the Shahibaug post office intercepted a suspicious parcel from Vadodara addressed to Dubai. Upon inspection, the parcel was found to contain 55 cloned SIM cards, leading the cybercrime unit to file a case the next day.
Investigations revealed that the suspects—Rahul Shah, a 32-year-old from Danteshwar, Vadodara; Kanti Baldaniya, a 30-year-old from Ankleshwar and Ajay Bhaliya, a 33-year-old from Vadodara—had orchestrated the scam in February.
They used both digital and manual methods to issue fake SIM cards in the names of customers. Shah employed biometric authentication and Aadhaar card details for the digital method, while for offline transactions, he uploaded customers’ photos along with their Aadhaar cards. Shah explained that for each transaction, he provided one SIM card to the customer and kept the second one for himself.
In total, Shah collected 55 SIM cards, which he sold to Baldaniya for Rs 300 each. Baldaniya, in turn, sold them to Bhaliya for Rs 350 each. Bhaliya then sent the SIM cards to a Dubai address using the name of his friend Rathod via Speed Post. The SIM cards were allegedly used for online gaming fraud and other illicit activities.
Legal proceedings have been initiated under Sections 406, 120(B) and 511 of the BNS as well as Section 66(C) of the IT Act.
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